Oliver Herring: 47 Days

Oliver Herring’s ever-expanding body of work ranges from early sculptures made by knitting with Mylar tape to experimental videos, and to complex photo-sculptures. Since 1998, Herring has regularly involved other people in his work, the best known being his community TASK events. These events invite participants to direct and shape an art work by assigning each other creative tasks to carry out, but leaving them free to follow their own impulses and approach to execution. Other community-based projects include stop-motion videos, scrupulously rendered photo-sculptures, and collaborative performances. These intimate interactions expand his practice into new realms, culminating in a series of highly successful events and workshop experiences. These projects have a particular focus on social interaction, human relationships and playful experimentation.

For his solo project in Xi’an, Herring expands upon the success of recent participatory projects in Chengdu and Wuzhen. Taking choreography as the core direction and process, he will shoot a series of short videos involving local Xi’an participants including dancers and non-dancers of both genders to produce a work unique to Xi’an. In addition to a familiar range of materials such as body paint, food dye, glitter and flour, the Xi’an project incorporates a new interest in clothing as costume. Throughout the period of the exhibition, the lower ground gallery at OCAT Xi’an will function as an open studio. Visitors can drop in a get involved at any time.

For their assistance with Oliver Herring’s programme, we would like to thank BANK/MABSOCIETY, Western Movie Group, Department of Clothing Design of Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, Shaanxi Vocational Academy of Art and Dahua 1935 for help Oliver’s project. Special thanks go to the volunteers, for their enthusiasm and excellent performance that made the project has been successfully happened.

About the Artist

Oliver Herring was born in Heidelberg, Germany in 1964. He has exhibited widely including the Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, NY; The Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; the Camden Arts Centre, London, England; the Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto, Japan; the He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; the Xth Lyon Biennale, Lyon, France; the 2010 Aichi Triennale, Nagoya, Japan; Performa 09, NY; and many others venues. In 2009, the Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY organized a 15-year survey of Herring’s work. Herring was featured on Season 3 of Art21/PBs’s program: Art21, Art in the 21st Century. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.